Unoriginal Sins |

18 Sep IMAGINED LANDS. THE ILLUSTRATED POSTAGE STEMP ALBUM. 1996.

Posted at 16:37h in Page Works & Contributions

Edinburgh: City of Edinburgh, 1962
21 x 15cm, 24pp plus card covers. This is a pretend stamp collection album released at the time fo the title exhibition in the City Arts Centre Edinburgh. Edited by Eck Finlay there are contributions by Ian Hamilton ,Robin Gillanders, David Bellingham, Finlay and Edwin Morgan and others. Inserted inside the book is a paper and plastic envelope complete with twelve small sheets of cinderella stamps. This is complete and unused - one of 500 copies printed but is strangely very hard to find. VG+.

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12 Sep DWARF BEANS. 1996.

Posted at 20:13h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
6.5 x 5.4cm, 4pp. A drawing of dwarf beans by Gary Hincks has a two line poem inside:

DWARF BEANS
BR> The stalks, wrists, appear too delicate
for the quarter-moons and leaves.

Finlay compares the shape of the long thin beans to the waxing or waning moon. VG+.

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04 Sep WORKS IN DURHAM. 1996.

Posted at 09:22h in Invitation Cards

Durham: University of Durham 1996
21 x 10cm, 6pp announcement leaflet with three reproductions of works by Finlay. Internally short text by Harry Gilonis. VG+.

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01 Sep THISTLEDOWN. 1996

Posted at 20:07h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
7.6 x 6.9cm, 4pp, A drawing of a thistledown by Gary Hincks on the front of the card has a poem by Finlay inside:

THISTLEDOWN
BR> the early snows of thistledown

the airy asterisks of thistledown
the clotted cream of thistledown
the distant peaks of thistledown

Four different one line visual poems by Finlay all use thistledown as their essential metaphor. Thistledown is white and fluffy which is somewhat strange given the astringency of the rest of the thistle. VG+.

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28 Aug BUILDING THE HULL. 1996.

Posted at 20:00h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
10.8 x 7cm, 4pp, A drawing of two parts of a model boat hull by Gary Hincks has internally:

BUILDING THE HULL

First plank
this half

then plank
that half

then wonder why
2 matching halves
won't fit

The word plank here has a double meaning - in lowland Scots it means "to place" - hence the poem can be read as either a description of bad design or bad construction. VG+.

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14 Aug JACOB’S BOAT. 1996.

Posted at 15:05h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1996)
8 x 7.5cm, 16pp plus printed card covers. Artist's book which prints four pages of four colours with the letters in a 5 x 5 lattice - GREEN, BROWN, BLACK, OCHRE followed by the same lattice with the word PATCH. Finally the whole is identified as "Jacob's Boat" on the last page. VG+.

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14 Aug CALYPSO. 1996.

Posted at 09:29h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
8 x 10cm, 6pp outer folder with an image of a starfish content of 6 8 x 10cm double sided cards.
One initially thinks there has been a printing error as the back of the cards seems upside down but if read in sequence the first side tells the story of a kidnapping of three Naval Protection Officers after a raid on a French trawler - La Calypso - by its crew, with the officers only released after a return to France. Red in the other direction the story of Calypso saving the life of Ulysses and holding him for seven years in her cave.
Finlay always enjoyed a naming co-incidence and the two stories obviously parallel each other in many respects. Small vignettes by Laura Gerahty. VG+

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12 Aug HOT DAY. 1996.

Posted at 16:20h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
9.8 x 4.1cm, 4pp artist's card with a drawing by Jo Hincks on the front and inside a poem by Finlay:

HOT
DAY

Gary
Vida
Rhoda
Jo

in
boats

12.7.96

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06 Aug EXPECTATION. 1996.

Posted at 17:51h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1996) 13 x 9.5cm, 4pp artist's card with a reproduced watercolour drawing of a blue sailship by Gary Hincks and a long "quotation" supposedly from Heinrich von Osterdingen which Finlay dubs "An Alternative Opening" where a young man thinks about a tale of a blue sailboat and how much he would love to see such a thing. In a 1802 book about Heinrich von Osterdingen by Novalis the young man dreams about a blue flower (rather than a boat). The blue flower became a regular reference in symbolism for romance - here Finlay alters the symbolism to that of the sea and long voyagesVG+.

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03 Aug ZEIT. 1996.

Posted at 12:12h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Munchen: Gina Kehayoff Verlage, 1996
21 x 14cm, 64pp plus card covers. Artist's book consisting of 62 b/w photographic images of 31 people showing both younger and older selves opposite each other on each two pages. Minimal text in German. VG+.

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02 Aug NEW BOAT. 1996.

Posted at 19:52h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
7.8 x 7.8cm, 4pp, A drawing of a boat's rudder by Gary Hincks on the front of the card has a poem by Finlay inside:

NEW BOAT
BR> Pintles cast bronze -

Rudder mahogany -
Varnish like ice on
A clear water pool.

A pintle is the attachment for a rudder. Finlay has other works that liken the varnish found on a rudder to ice. VG+.

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01 Aug ECHOES. SERIES: AFTER LZ. 1996.

Posted at 19:01h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
14 x 6.4cm, 4pp, The poem (after Louis Zukofsky) is

AFTER LZ
BR> an
other

in
equality

wild

flower

The pairs of words when conjoined change the meaning to the opposite - which is also true of the last two words which are spaced apart to make the pairing less obvious. VG+.

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